Real Talk: Kids and New Foods

Welcome to YTF Community, a place to safely share in the challenges and joys of feeding our families. And make all of it easier!

Broccoli cheddar pasta in blue kids bowl with pink spoon.

I recently muted most of the other kid food accounts I follow on social because I realized they were making me feel badly about what my kids eat—and what I eat. I kept seeing posts with the sort of “if your kid doesn’t like salmon, you have to try this recipe!”.

None of recipes looked like ones my kids would ever try. And I bristle at the idea that we have to “get” our kids to like every food. I am an adult and I don’t like every food!

But just like all of you, I want to help my kids enjoy a range of foods without food waste or jumping through hoops.

And look, I realize a lot of people actually don’t like my advice on this topic because I don’t promise an instant fix. But through my own experience as a mom, my journey with food and an eating disorder, 13 years sharing recipes will thousands of families, and reading the work of responsive feeding therapists, I know there is another way.

This is the shift that moves our perspective from treating our kids eating as a problem to solve to simply focusing on how to make it easier to feed our kids—and ourselves.

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